Customer Reviews

American Music: A Panorama, Concise Edition

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I teach a course in United States music history at the high school level, and this college text is a good stretch for my students. It is clearly written, well organized, and provides great points for departure in my lectures. The accompanying CD set, though not perfect, is a convenient way to bring in examples and allows for some independent study. Music history teachers can augment the examples with their current CD holdings.
The text surveys "American" music, not just music of the United States, although that is in the majority. The distinction of American versus U.S makes for a good discussion point throughout the semester. We do not take the chapters in order (we begin with music of the early European settlers), and the book lends itself to that flexibility.
Although there may be better texts for specific music history topics, (i.e., Jazz or contemporary "serious" music) this is an excellent survey text for the advanced high schooler or college music history survey course. Term paper suggestions, questions for additional research and bibliography are included at the end of each chapter.

In the past, there was Hitchcock, Chase, and Hamm's books. They were all "surveys" in that they started with Native American music and the music of the early settlers and progressed roughly to the present. These are outdated books as far as the "present" goes, but they are each still very good, even if what they emphasize is different. Today, though, the college teacher has two options, Richard Crawford's "Introduction to America's Music" and this book, originally by Kingman and substantially revised by L. Candelaria. Crawford's "Introduction" is really excellent in every way. It is packed full of information with all points-of-view and arguments thoroughly influenced by the most recent research. He really knows his stuff. It's organized chronologically, so, like the books above, it starts with the settlers and moves forward. My students had trouble with this book, as did I, because it takes a full third of the semester before you get to any music that most of the students have even heard of. That's why Kingman/Candelaria is, in my opinion, a uniquely successful alternative. It starts with the four historically principal categories of "folk" music (N-A, Mexican American, Anglo America, and African American) and includes another chapter on more recent kinds of folk music from other traditions. As for many students the "real" American music is "folk music," this is a great way to start off the semester and gets the class really thinking about the issues that shape the character and content of music in regions that now comprise the U.S. After that comes Blues and Rock (which I separate because I think rock needs to come AFTER all the other popular music), then big units on Sacred Music, Popular Music, and Classical Music.

At first I didn't like this approach. But after using it I realize that, if properly supplemented, it is the ticket to a successful class. Students need to know that American Music has been around for several centuries and that we can't shape our understanding of what it is by just current standards alone. So I find the book to be very balanced. Yes, the section on jazz could be larger. And I think there musical theater gets short shrift as well as American popular music from the 1920s to 1950s that isn't jazz (as in the many famous songs that reflected changing American values over those decades as well as served as standards for jazz bands).

So this needs to be supplemented. But its still the best approach for many reasons. One is that there isn't a huge amount of reading (which most students just won't do). The text that is there is, for the most part, accurate and includes very important interpretive information. I think most students feel "informed" after reading the chapter so that they can listen to music, whether it's the shape note singing of Appalachia or barrelhouse piano style or the songs of Tin Pan Alley with some solid knowledge about where these genres came from. Yes, there isn't a whole lot of historical information here. But what there is is judiciously chosen. A book on American Music of four centuries that would include all the historical background would probably have to be about 1600 pages at the minimum.

So I highly recommend this. Just be ready to add some supplemental music. For example, I used some wonderful recordings of 18th century American sacred music that has appeared in the last 15 years, particularly of the Moravian community or of Billings and the New England tunesmiths. Also, I thought there should be more popular music from the period just before and leading up to the Civil War. THere are tones of recordings out there now of this music that are available, some even using period brass instruments.

I had to buy these cd's for a class. I am so glad I did. This sent of cd's is such a good over view of American music. It covers all types of music. Including: Country, Ragtime, Jazz, Cultural, Blues, Rock, Theater and American music from the time of the colonies. I loved it.

This was a set of CD's (music)..it was used and it was in great condition!

Ask your teacher if you can use this old edition. I paid only for shipping practically. Came with the CDs, which was a hug bonus!

This is a concise edition of Daniel Kingman's previous book of the same title. I know of it having been used as a high school textbook on American Music.

Kingman's book begins with a great introduction of some of the various ethnic/folk musics of the American musical tradition: Anglo-American, African-American, American Indian, and Latino backgrounds. Part Two looks at music which germinated from the South-Country, Blues, and Rock. Other sections examine popular sacred music, secular music, jazz, a substantial section on classical music, and a small epilogue on other regional styles.

This text is good because it is not too difficult to read and interesting overall. Kingman does a good job of introducing the music and providing useful descriptions of each style.
His bibliographies at the end of each chapter are fantastic, and he also provides many useful project ideas which would work great for high school/college classes alike

Unfortunately, there are a host of problems. First, the section on jazz is too short (30 pages), as well as those on rock (25 pages) and musical theater (20 pages). Kingman also neglects to put each movement in its proper historical context. This does not seem to be an important goal for him.

Many courses teach either American Popular Music or American Art/Classical music, not both. There are better texts out there which are more specific. For a survey course on all American music, this can work, but will certainly need to be supplemented with primary source materials and information on jazz, rock, Broadway, and other areas.

Received the book in the condition advertized, during the timeframe expected. Recommend the seller.

DMC

I never received this product and have not received any help from the seller or Amazon on this matter.

American Music: A Panorama is a cd that has many different tracks from American Music History. I think that it contains many good examples of this, but there could be so many more. Elvis, the artist of the century, has no songs, as well as many other influential artists from the 50's and 60's. The booklet in it also had many errors in track numbers and song title numbers in it. Overall it was good but could be better, and I definitely do not think it was worth the money.